Investors Yaakov (Jack) Kaufman of Caesarea and Ted Lipfeld of Toronto, Canada, have decided to liquidate all their joint investments in Israel. The Board of Directors of the Petah Tikva Mall, of which they hold 90%, last week approved the deal for the deal of the mall to Azorim Properties and Delek Real Estate for $23 million. The contract will be signed in the next few days. Delek Real Estate, controlled by Yitzhak Tshuva, will own 50% of the mall.
The Petah Tikva sale transaction was also approved by Olympia, owned by engineers Oscar Katznelson and Alex Gur, who hold the remaining 10% of the mall.
Kaufman told "Globes" that he and Lipfeld had decided to liquidate all their other joint investments in Israel. They will shortly be selling a 3,000 sq.m. commercial centre in Ashdod, which is valued at an estimated $8-10 million. They will also sell the 120 apartments remaining for sale in projects in Beit Shemesh and Elad. The partners recently reduced the apartment prices by 5% to 7% so as to accelerate sales. They are selling three room apartments for $105,000-110,000.
The mall at the Sirkin junction in Petah Tikva consists of 10,000 sq.m. income-producing area. Yaakov Lustig, who has managed it for the past two years, doubled the rental income from $1.5 million to $3 million
Published by Israel's Business Arena April 25, 1999